Shade Tree Wisdom 11/15/08

Ever since the state of Texas said I could no longer use their state’s highways unless I got some glasses, I have regarded passing the eye test for my driver’s license renewal successfully as a sort of Rite of Passage.

Well, my birthday is Monday, and this year my license expired, so the state sent their renewal postal, and I obeyed, and passed the eye test – again successfully.

And it brought to mind that poem about harvest time by James Whitcomb Riley titled, “When The Frost is on the pumpkin”.

“When the Frost is on the punkin, and the fodder’s in the shock
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ Turkey cock”

That funny looking word, kyouck, is the best the poet could do with the sound the Turkey makes just before he starts to gobble. Trust me, it’s that way.

Anyway, the poem goes on about the harvest ending, ‘the apples all is gathered, and the ones a feller keeps, is poured around the cellar floor in red and yellow heaps.’ Then “Your wimmen folks is through with their mince and apples butter, and their sauce and sausage too”.

So the harvest is done, and the farm is ready for winter, crops harvested, apples gathered in, the land plowed and ready for the winter cold and snow.

There is something so satisfying about a hard job finished, isn’t there? That is what I mean by “Rite of Passage”. It’s done, well done, successfully done.

And for a Christian that always calls for thanksgiving.
“Come, ye thankful people, come,
Raise the song of harvest home.
All is safely gathered in, ’ere the winter storms begin.
God our Maker doth provide, For our wants to be supplied,
Come to God’s own temple, come. Raise the song if harvest home” 892

And may God bless with rich harvest and thankful heart.

GPD 11/15/08